Date: October 2, 2026
Travel is an intrinsic and important part of this job. So I head out today to Atlanta to visit with friends and alumni. I travel with the Senior Vice President for Communications and Institutional Advancement, Ms. Nicky Burridge. Then tomorrow I will return to only head down to Madison (my retirement home) with my wife Lesley. Our little dog has an ACL tear and Maddie will be having surgery.
We are all a blend. Life is always a mixture of work and pleasure or as I describe it in the subject “business and the personal” because watching a dog on three legs is hardly pleasure. One must always progress the core work. Thanks to text, email, and zoom much of my job can be done from anywhere.
But I will miss chapel. I love the pause at the beginning of the day. And although I will say p.135 of the Prayer Book by myself (in fact Maddie is almost always with me), it is not the same as the joy of being in a community and starting a day with a focus on the source of our being who gives us life and invites us all into relationship with the divine.
The Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, Ph.D.
Dean and President of Virginia Theological Seminary and the President of The General Theological Seminary.